Since that first brave adventurer left the great Afro-Asian homeland to travel the long chain of islands to Australasia, human beings have consumed the resources they would need for their own future. The Aboriginals, Maoris and Polynesian peoples were the world’s original future eaters. They changed the flora and fauna in ways that now seem inconceivable. Europeans have made a much great impact. Today, future eating is a universal occupation. In this illustrated ecological history, acclaimed scientist and historian Flannery follows the environment of the islands through the age of dinosaurs to the age of mammals and the arrival of humans, to the European colonisers and industrial society. Penetrating, gripping, and provocative, this book combines natural history, anthropology, and ecology on an epic scale.